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| School Profile: Denver School of Science and Technology 
The Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST) is a premier charter high school within Denver Public Schools (DPS). The school focuses on school culture and personal success. The core values that the community lives by are respect; responsibility; integrity; doing your best; courage; and, curiosity. DSST is a wireless campus that also focuses on the importance of technology in education and work—all students own a laptop. The school opened with a ninth-grade class in fall 2004; that class just graduated in spring 2008. All of the 79 graduating seniors were accepted into college, and all are going. Of them, 50% will be first-generation college students. The school consistently receives an Excellent rating on the CSAP exams, one of very few Denver high schools to reach this level. In addition, 40% of DSST students are from low-income families. In light of our focus on civics and citizenship for this edition of the education report, we found it a perfect time to highlight this successful school, specifically through their elective class on poverty and hunger. Bret Poppleton, Director of Business and Operations at DSST, teaches the class. The class begins with an overview of hunger and poverty and narrows to ways that students can help people facing these issues in their own community. Over spring break 2008, 18 students, their teacher and chaperones visited the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas. The Heifer Foundation offers this hands-on campus for education on issues pertaining to international hunger and poverty. The DSST group stayed at the ranch for 5 days, and lived in three different places from around the world that have been recreated on the ranch: Mozambique, Tibet, and the Mississippi Delta. Students and chaperones were randomly chosen to live in one of these three countries via lottery; once placed in these countries they were either from the middle, working or lower classes and based on their class status were given the same resources as people actually living in these areas of the world. For example, a person with low-income from Mozambique may live in a mud shack and have to share one bowl of cornmeal with 5 people for breakfast. Students and chaperones who lived in Tibet may live in a yurt; those living in the Mississippi Delta may live in an abandoned bus. The DSST group had the same daily experiences as those actually living in these countries with the same resources or lack of resources. Brett Poppleton states, “It was a powerful experience. We were all outside of our comfort zones and living with real-life issues of hunger and poverty.” When the students returned to Denver, the class began to apply some of the lessons they learned on the Heifer Ranch. They visited nonprofit organizations in Denver that support people struggling with poverty, such as the Denver Rescue Mission, The Gathering Place, and the Denver Food Bank. It gave the students ideas of places where they could volunteer and get involved in their community. The students also participated in a “Thirty-Hour Famine,” a World Vision sponsored event, where they stopped eating solid food at Noon on a Friday and did not eat again until 6pm on Saturday. It was another way for students to begin to understand what it means and what it feels like to be poor and hungry. Brett Poppleton will teach the elective course again during the 2008/09 school year, and this year they may go to New Orleans. To learn more about the Denver School of Science and Technology, visit www.scienceandtech.org. To learn more about the Heifer Ranch, visit www.heiferfoundation.org/seminars/ranchinfo.cfm. |
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